Re: [tied] Agamemnon?

How can be explained then the place-name Agathyrnum (today Capo d'Orlando,
prov. Messina, Sicily) mentioned by Ptolemy, Pliny, Strabo etc.? It is
reported to have been founded by an Agathyrnus, son of Aeolus king of the
Aeolian islands and ruler of the winds (this same Aeolus is of Greek
parentage in the mythology, since he descended from Deucalion).

At 07:57 14.03.2003 +0000, you wrote:

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> > *****GK: I take it then that "AGATHYRSOI" might be
> > interpreted as "the very bold" or "the very strong"?
> > As a Greek version of some non-Greek name it would be
> > in the same category as the name of the Callipidae.
> > Would you take a tentative stab at how "AGATHYRSOI"
> > (in the above sense might) be rendered in Iranic?****
>
>
>To begin with, I doubt if the <-tHursoi> part can be interpreted as
>'bold' in Greek terms. <tHurso-> is not a Greek adjective, and the
>noun <tHursos> means 'Dionysian staff' (it looks like a loanword and
>may have something to do with ethnonymic <tHurso->, but I wouldn't
>like to walk too far off into these quicksands). When I said that
>Agathyrsi made sense as a Greek word, I meant that Aga- could be
>identified with the Greek prefix <aga->. The whole thing might mean
>something like 'the Arch-Thyrsi', with Thyrsi (<tHurso->) still
>non-Greek, possibly a Thracian or "Thracoid" reflex of *tr.so- (rather
>than anything Iranian). The possibility that there is an ultimate
>connection between that and <turrheno->/<tHurseno-> is certainly worth
>considering.
>
>As for <aga-> itself, Raimo Anttila has proposed that it represents
>the composition form of <ago:n> 'contest' (*h2ago:n/*h2agn.-). It
>would certainly make sense to analyse names like Agamemnon or
>Agastrophos in such "sporting" terms. I suspect that <aga-> is in fact
>of mixed origin, standing for the merged reflexes of *m.g^h2- and
>*h2agn.- in Greek. The accentual difference between <agánnipHos> and
><agaklutós> may reflect their different origin: *m.'g^h2-snigWHos
>'very snowy' vs. *h2agn.-k^lutós 'famous in contest' (reinterpreted as
>'very famous').
>
>Piotr
>
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